Andrews University Office of Alumni Services

How to Write a Great Resume

A QUICK GUIDE TO RESUME WRITING

A great resume that highlights your experience and lets your skills and talents shine can be a huge boost to getting your dream job. A resume is often the first thing a future employer will have to judge you off of, and they are known to not spend more than a few seconds on average scanning it. Sound scary? No worries, here is a straightforward guide to help you write a great resume.

Resume Sections Let’s go over each part of a resume in order of how these sections will appear on

the page (from top to bottom).

Name and contact information

Keep this professional and relevant. Add your email (make sure it sounds professional), phone number, and LinkedIn profile, and only add other social media accounts it they are relevant to the positions you will be applying for.

Objective

An objective will only be a couple sentences long and summarize what you are pursuing professionally. A well-crafted objective statement can add value, but it’s often not necessary. Don’t worry about it for now while you craft the bulk of the resume. You can come back to this when you tailor your resume for specific companies/positions.

Education

As a student, your college education information is very important. Put the name of your school, the degree you are receiving, and your projected date of graduation. You can add your GPA here, but only do so if it is one you can be proud of.

Experience

As someone who has been a full-time student most of your life, you might not have much work experience under your belt. That’s ok! You will update your resume as you gain professional experience. For now, add summer jobs, part-time jobs, volunteer work, as well as your current job. You should format each position in reverse chronological order (with most recent positions at the top). Add a short description of each position that explains what you did and what your responsibilities were.

Activities

This is where you add extracurricular activities you have been involved in. Some things you can add are sports participation, community service, and leadership positions.

Awards and Honors

Here you can add academic or professional awards, scholarships, and honors societies. Add a little description with each item so employers know what it’s about.

Tips to Remember Now that you have the content taken care of, here are some guidelines for

making it look clean and professional.

‣ Choose a font like Times New Roman or Arial with a font size between 10-12.

‣ Make sure each section header clearly separates parts of the resume.

‣ Keep it simple and straightforward. No one who goes through a pile of resumes wants to spend time trying to decipher a complicated format because someone decided to take a few too many artistic liberties.

‣ Stick to one page. You might have to leave out some earlier jobs in order to fit it all, and that’s ok.

‣ Make sure you have zero spelling errors, typos, or grammatical issues. Find someone you trust to look carefully over it for you to make sure none of those things appear.